Better Off
by larkgrace
Summary: Post-PG. Kitty, suffering from nightmares, resorts to calling on the closest thing to a friend she has...who may or may not be alive. Slight shippy undertones of Bart/Kitty, Bart/Ptol, Kitty/Nat. One-shot.


**So. Um. Hello, fandom. Pleased to meet you.**

**So this has actually been written for months, and I've put it up on AO3 and tumblr, and I've been meaning to put it here and I forgot. So. Um.**

**I don't own the fantastic Bartimaeus series, it all belongs to one fabulous EVIL JONATHON ANTHONY STROUD.**

O-o-O

She isn't sure what to expect when she summons him.

Some part of her expects nothing at all, actually, for the pentacle to remain empty and for the last wild hope she possesses to be crushed, because it only makes sense that he would have perished too. But a few moments after the final syllable is spoken, there's a crash and a column of fire erupts (a little, broken part of her wants to smile because of his typical flair) and then a booming voice echoes all around: _"I am Bartimaeus! I am Sakhr al-Jinni, N'gorso the Mighty, and the Serpent of the Silver Plumes! I have rebuilt the walls of Uruk, Karnak, and Prague. I have spoken with Solomon. I have—" _At this, a horrible monstrous head appears in the fire, grinning with Bartimaeus's trademark smirk, but as soon as the flaming eyes land on her the face goes slack with surprise. The fire cools, shrinks, and then standing before her is the small Egyptian boy she's come to know so well.

"Kitty," he says, his voice lacking the echo.

"Bartimaeus," she responds, with a nod.

Several seconds pass in silence, because she's not quite sure what one should say when confronting a spirit who recently inhabited the body of a boy you think you might have liked before he went and got himself blown to pieces, and then—

"Nat told me to say hello."

She sits down hard on the floor. Her legs are spilling out of the carefully drawn lines of the pentacle, but she doesn't care because, honestly, if he'd wanted her dead he's had thousands of opportunities to finish her off by now.

"That arse," she mutters. "I hate him."

Bartimaeus sits in his own circle, cross-legged. "Me too."

"We're probably better off without him."

"Undoubtedly."

She rests her head on her knees. "I miss him, Bartimaeus."

The djinni doesn't reply, just scoots forward out of his circle until he's right in front of her. "He really was hoping he'd get out," he says. "If that helps."

It doesn't help, not at all, and in a fit of some emotion she can't identify she flings herself forward and wraps her arms around the boy's neck. She feels him stiffen, unsure of what to make of this—in all honesty, she doesn't quite understand it herself—but she supposes he's picked up on a few human habits because he slowly, gingerly wraps his arms around her shoulders.

"Well then," he says, "Please—don't cry. I'd rather not have your snot smeared all over me. And if you don't mind, what _exactly _have you summoned me here for?"

She takes a deep breath and pulls away from the djinn.

"I just needed a friend," she says.

*#*#*

"_Jakob!" she yells, running off the ferry as fast as the crowds—and her stiffened, weak legs—will allow. She can see him already, standing on the quay, arms folded tight across his chest, face hidden beneath his cap. She waves, and he nods back to her before turning and walking away from her, standing next to a building some yards away that is somewhat removed from the crowd._

"_Jakob!" She finally reaches him, panting a little—curse her aching joints—and he turns to face her. His eyes go wide beneath his cap._

"_I know I look different, but—"_

"_I know why."_

_The venom in his voice startles her. "You do?"_

"_Everyone does. Everyone's talking about you, Kitty, talking about the wonderful commoner girl who saved the Empire. The wonderful commoner girl who summoned a _demon." _He spits the last word at her._

"_It's not like that."_

"_Then what is it?" He turns around, arms wrapping around his own torso. "It's exactly like that, that's what it is. You've sided with _their _kind."_

"_Please, Jakob—"_

"_You summoned a demon!" he shouts, whirling back around to face her. "You summoned one of those disgusting creatures! You summoned one of the things that did this—" he points to his burned face "—to me! How can you live with yourself, Kathleen Jones?"_

_He doesn't wait for an answer. He storms off, hands in his coat pockets, leaving her dumbstruck with her apology hanging on her lips._

*#*#*

She gives him one charge only: to help her sleep.

Of course, his first response is an offer to fetch a frying pan or some other heavy object of her choosing, but that's not what she means. He's free to wander in the day all he likes, can go where he pleases—back to the Other Place, even—but when night falls, he comes back and helps quiet her mind. He rids her thoughts of Nathaniel, of Jakob, of her family she left behind.

Bartimaeus isn't adept at the whole "comfort" thing, or even at dealing with humans in general. Which is why the first night after she summons him, she enters her bedroom half-dressed, only to give a shriek and attempt to cover herself when she spots the djinni sprawled on a chair in the corner.

He doesn't look up from cleaning his nails when he says, "Kitty, I've seen naked women before. I've _been _naked women before. Don't flatter yourself."

She still retreats to the hall before putting her shirt on. When she returns, she stands in the doorway for a moment, unsure of what to do, and finally decides to sit on her bed.

"And how, exactly, do you propose I get you to sleep?" Bartimaeus says. "Personally, I'm still voting for the frying pan idea."

She glares at him. "No."

"Shall I sing you a song, then? _Fare you well, my dear, I must be gone—"_

"No," she snaps, although he has a surprisingly lovely singing voice. She settles against the headboard, pulling her knees up to her chest.

"Well then, _what?"_

"Tell me something happy," she says. "Tell me…tell me about Ptolemy."

The boy's amber eyes flick up. "Ptolemy?"

"Yes."

He leans back in the chair and knits his fingers behind his head. "Well, he was male. Two eyes. A mouth. He had hair—"

"Bartimaeus, you know that isn't what I meant."

He shakes his head, gives a little _tsk _of disappointment. "Loopholes, Kitty dear. Didn't Natty Boy ever tell you that we nasty demons always look for them?"

She rests her head on her knees and closes her eyes.

"Right. I suppose that was a bit insensitive." She hears him sigh and shuffle about in his chair. "What do you want to know?"

"I don't know. Anything." She curls up on her side, back pressed against the headboard.

So she closes her eyes and listens while Bartimaeus tells her stories of the boy scholar, all the while her heartbeat thudding in her ears, and the beats say _Nathaniel, Jakob, Nathaniel, Jakob, _until the djinni's words finally drown them out and she falls asleep.

When she wakes up, the chair is empty.

*#*#*

When Kitty finds the demon that night, he's curled up on her pillow in the form of a cat.

He pauses in the act of licking his paw and rubbing it behind his ear. "What?" the cat says. "I thought if you were undressed again, you might not feel nearly so uncomfortable around a small, furry creature."

"How considerate," she mutters, and flings herself onto the mattress. The cat gives a hiss of displeasure before curling up, settling its tail over its nose. She's spent enough time around cats to read the creature's glare: _Watch it, human. _

"What'll it be, then," Bartimaeus says, "another bedtime story?"

She doesn't answer. Instead, slowly, she reaches out, her fingers stopping just short of the cat's fur.

"Don't even think about it," he says.

One finger scratches just behind his right ear. His tail flicks rapidly, back, forth, back, forth, and smacks against her arm, but she just smiles and continues to run her fingers through his soft coat.

He keeps glaring at her, and she spends a good few minutes wondering when he is going to bite her, but finally the cat's eyes slide closed (even though she knows he wasn't sleeping) and she falls asleep with one hand resting on his back.

When she wakes up, he is still curled up under her palm, yellow-green eyes open and trained on her.

"Good morning," the djinni says. "Did you know you talk in your sleep? I had no idea you were so terrified of spiders, Kitty dear. Isn't this the sort of thing friends tell each other?"

She hasn't quite processed that, because it is early morning and she has yet to consume coffee, so the only thing she manages to articulate around her yawn is "You're…you're still here."

"Obviously." The cat slides out from under her hand, stretches, and says, "I'll be going now." Then it trots to the window, shoves it open with two paws, and leaps into the street.

*#*#*

The third night, Kitty stumbles into her room well after midnight and barely conscious after a day of walking about the city—which, with her current physical state, is actually quite taxing.

Bartimaeus is sprawled atop her mattress, wearing the form of a beautiful woman with dark skin and long hair, eyes closed and looking for all the world like he is asleep (though she is not sure if djinn sleep). She pauses in the doorway, wondering if she will disturb him, when he says, "Don't just stand there. You're making me feel quite awkward."

"Sincerest apologies," she spits, stomping across the room and tossing herself next to him, burying her face in the pillow, and she knows she's being unnecessarily cross but she's so _tired _and his relaxed grace is upsetting her. She hears the squealing of springs as he shifts, and he says, "What will it be tonight?"

She responds with a question of her own. "Who are you supposed to be? A friend from Ptolemy's time?"

She sits up, and he smiles, eyes still shut. "Before Ptolemy's time. And 'friend' may be putting it a tad strongly." The djinn shifts the woman's arm away from her face, cracks an eye open. "I liked Asmira well enough, when she wasn't almost getting us killed or threatening to skewer me."

"Oh." She decides she doesn't want to know more.

"Well?" he asks. The woman's perfectly sculpted eyebrow arches. "Do you want me to _do _something, or are you just going to lay there? Mind, I won't let you pet me again. You'll lose your hand if you try."

She hasn't said anything about not harming her, so she knows he could hurt her if he wished, but she has long since stopped fearing him.

She thinks for another minute. "Sing," she finally says.

He—the woman—whoever—blinks. "Sing?"

"Yes. That song you started the other night. Sing it." Hastily, she adds, "Please?"

She blinks, and it is Ptolemy sitting next to her, looking quite startled. Then he sighs, opens his mouth, and starts up in a lovely tenor voice: _"Fare you well, my dear, I must be gone and leave you for a while, if I roam away I'll come back again, though I go ten thousand miles, my dear, though I go ten thousand miles…"_

The song is sad, and sweet, and slow, and she finds herself drifting off as he finishes: _"…a-making moan for the loss of his love, as I will do for thee, my dear, as I will do for thee."_

*#*#*

She wakes in the middle of the night, sweating, having just endured the most horrible nightmare, and Bartimaeus is sitting in a chair across the room, reading one of her books—is that a Septimus Heap novel?—he looks up and says, "Kitty—"

She flings herself across the room and into his lap. "Oh, god, Bartimaeus—" she's shaking "—I dreamed—I was with Nathaniel—and he—and we died—is was _awful, _god, he must have been in so much pain—" she collapses into incoherent wails as the memory crashes over her.

Bartimaeus drops the book and allows her to hold him—a small miracle in itself—until she falls asleep again.

When she wakes for the second time, at a more reasonable hour, she has somehow wound up on her bed again, tucked under the covers. Bartimaeus is next to her, one arm still trapped by her hands, and she sits up slowly, too emotionally exhausted to deal with the day just yet.

"Thank you," she says. Her voice cracks.

"You're welcome."

Hesitantly, she rests her head on his bony shoulder, but he makes no move to force her away. They sit in silence and watch the sunrise through her grimy window, golden light drowning a city that the boys they loved will never see.

O-o-O


End file.
